Hey!
What a phenomenal letter. Man I can't get enough of them! The other missionaries sitting next to me right now are very jealous each week as I read some of the "power statements" that you share. Thank you so much! I can't believe the girls have already been asked to prom... Crazy! I haven't even received pictures from the last one! When is the dance by the way? I remember back to grade school and "the way that I saw the months" (Jill) and I always saw June, July, and August as super long, fun filled months and then the school year as even longer. January-May was always blurred together but also the most stressful and it felt like it dragged on forever. Now, why am I telling you this? I dunno... I guess because I can't believe that time has flown so fast and the girls are already almost done with a year of school during which the whole time I have been a missionary. These past three months have flown by as a missionary when back in the day of school it would have felt as if they were the longest months of my life. Just a thought on how fast time seems to be going.
This week has been crazy. We have been busily preparing a stake report to present to President Hettinger. It went well. One major key learning that we had is that most of the scheduled baptisms that we have for the upcoming months have all come from street contacting and/or tracting. Not Member Referrals. It is a known fact that member referrals are a hundred times more solid than the others. I won't even lie to you, President Hettinger loves us. He would do anything we asked haha. That sounds very conceited but it works out well when you have a good relationship with the stake president. I told him that I think it would be wise for each of the Bishops to know about each of those investigators and that the bishops should invite them into their homes for lessons. He responded that he would personally call each bishop and tell them to do what we said. "No more of those dinky emails." haha Man that felt good! We went on to talk about each of the individual wards and Ward Mission Leaders and what needs to be done to help the work progress. Most of the wards are no longer having auxiliaries come to the weekly coordination meeting (which is a bummer, but we are here to serve them so okay I guess) so the assignments fall onto the Ward Mission Leaders shoulders to be made and many of them are not getting it done. We talked about how three of the wards need some training on how to develop and follow through with a ward mission plan and he agreed immediately. He said the stake would take care of it and get it done. It was a good meeting.
At the beginning of the meeting I was asked to share a spiritual thought. Well, I thought about it for awhile, and a quote popped into my mind that was said by Jim Baldwin, whom we baptized the previous day. Jim got up to bear his testimony at his baptism and shared his conversion story. He talked about how he was supposed to get baptized back in February, but Satan threw too many darts at him and discouraged him. He was shown so much anti material and given too much flack that he couldn't handle getting baptized anymore. (He was being taught by some other missionaries in a different stake, I guess he likes us better :) haha) Well about a month before his "real" baptism, he started FEELING like he needed to go back to church. He started FEELING like he needed to read the Book of Mormon. And as he did so, he FELT the SPIRIT tell him that it was true, and that he needed to act on those FEELINGS. In his testimony, he said, "I know that people will do all that they can to bring me down and try to prove me wrong...But I'm here to promise to you today that for the rest of my life I cannot, no wait, I WILL NOT, deny what I know to be true..." It reminded me of the conversion of Alma the Younger, and also a scripture in Romans 1:16. It says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth..." I love that! He is an amazing kid. Another reason I am here.
For companionship studies this week we have been reading an essay by Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge of the seventy. It's about how to get the most out of your mission. While reading it, several quotes stuck out to me and I would like to share them with you. Often times we ask ourselves, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" That is a frequently asked question while street contacting, teaching, and tracting. Elder Corbridge answered it with this: "Every challenge you face, every hard thing you confront, every bad thing that happens to you, every unfairness, every conflict, every sadness, tragedy, every disappointment and heartache, every temptation and opposition happens for one purpose only: to give you opportunity to respond by applying in your life the teachings of Jesus." He also said, I love this, "To believe that weaknesses and deficiencies in your character are unchangeable is to reject the central truth of the plan of salvation." We are always changing and are always moving either forward or backward. With this, he said, "As you move forward, you incorporate into your being the characteristics and qualities of God. As you move backward you assimilate the qualities of Satan." I had never thought of it like that. There is no standing still in this life, there is no being idle. We are always changing, "what you think, say, do, hear, and see causes you to change..." So who do we want to become? What is our life's greatest work? Elder Corbridge answers by saying, "Your life's greatest work is you." The worth of souls is great in the eyes of God. How great shall be your joy if you bring but one soul (yourself) to the kingdom of God? But how great shall be your joy if you bring many souls unto God? I have had a lot of time to ponder about this talk and I think it will take my whole life to understand the concept of my life's greatest work being me.
The work is going great. We have hopes to baptize a new record in the stake in the month of April. Not that numbers matter or anything, but behind each of those numbers, is a soul. We have several planning and preparing for April as well. It is going to be awesome!
I love you all very much! L-Mo you gotta keep the tradition alive and forget parts of your uniform all the time! It makes me feel "not as stupid." I hope to receive some hard copy pictures in the not so distant future! Thank you so much for all you do!
Love you
Elder Colton Mouritsen
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